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Greater Collaboration Needed Between Research and Farm

UK - Greater improvements in how research is taken onto farm are required to boost agricultural productivity in England, says Innovation for Agriculture (IfA).

Addressing the barriers to adoption of research and innovation on farm was the topic of an Animal Task Force meeting last week (5th November).

The seminar in Brussels focused on innovating for a productive and sustainable livestock sector, with key speakers from across Europe.

Innovation has the potential to significantly boost production on European livestock farms, whilst taking into account the wider ecosystem.

Charlotte Johnston, Technical Specialist for IfA spoke at the Animal Task Force meeting in Brussels, discussing barriers and opportunities to innovate on farm.

Addressing a lack of knowledge transfer and extension on farms in England which has led to stagnated agricultural productivity, she said that more was needed to be done to pull together fragmented research projects into key points that could be adopted on farm.

The UK has some first class research institutes, yet there still appears to be a detachment in taking this knowledge out to producers – particularly in England. Whilst the government’s Agri-Tech strategy will look to rebuild some of the capacity of applied farm research there is still a gap in connecting this with the commercial farmer.

As such greater collaboration between researchers and producers must be encouraged, ensuring a two-way dialogue.

Innovation for Agriculture (IfA) is working to bridge this knowledge gap between applied research and commercial producers. It is working with a wide range of industry partners including leading producers, research institutes and commercial companies.

Over the next 6 months IfA are planning to deliver a number of technical meetings in the following areas: renewable energy, precision farming and soil and water.